Complaints and Enforcement

Enforcement

Complaint Guidelines

If you wish to file a complaint against a North Carolina licensed professional counselor, you may do so by placing that complaint in writing and sending it to the NCBLPC. According to the American Counseling Association’s Ethical Guidelines, you should attempt to resolve your complaint with the counselor directly. If this is not successful, you may place your concerns in writing, citing the ACA ethical codes you believe to have been broken, and submit along with a completed NCBLPC Complaint Form to the Board. The Board will assign your complaint a number so no names will be known to anyone but the Board attorney, administrator, and ethics chair. Once the complaint has been received, notification is sent to the counselor against which the complaint was filed allowing him or her to respond to the alleged charges. If necessary, the Board will investigate the complaint and issue a ruling after gathering all necessary information. Investigations will not be made unless complaints are in writing and signed by the complaintant.

Overview of Complaint Procedures

1. Submit the complaint on the Board’s Complaint Form available for download below. Additional documents needed to complete the complaint form are: the Code of Ethics, Article 24 and Title 21 Chapter 53. These documents are also available on this website. Specific breaches of the Code of Ethics or law (Article 24 and Title 21 Chapter 53) need to be listed on the complaint form or on additional pages, and any additional evidence deemed as essential should also be included with the complaint form.

2. The completed complaint form is received in the Board’s office. The complaint is logged into a database and assigned a complaint number. The counselor is sent a certified letter and a copy of the complaint and is given an opportunity to respond in writing to the complaint. A letter is also sent to the person filing the complaint acknowledging the receipt of the complaint and informing the person of the complaint number. After receiving the complaint number any additional information forwarded to the Board’s office should include the complaint number so it can be easily identified as additional information to the complaint.

3. Copies of the complaint are also forwarded to the Board’s Ethics Committee for review. When the counselor’s reply is received, this is also forwarded to the members of the Ethics Committee.

4. At the next scheduled Board meeting the Ethics Committee reviews with the Board details of the complaint received and the response from the counselor. The Board makes a decision as to what the next step should be. The Board meets approximately every three months.

5. All complaints must follow due process and are not resolved immediately.